It goes
Today finished the WCS correction of the WHDF images, catalogue, PSF, new catalogue excluding the masked objects, running the brighter 5%, should be done my tomorrow, since there was a problem and 6 hours were lost because of this issue between IDL_IDLBRIDGES and X11 connections ... always a mess. Why do we use IDL??? It's expensive and everything good they create, they find a way to prevent you from using properly.The FDF will be ready soon. Then I can match it with the ground based photometry and start calculating parameters.
Photometry for the last clusters ... I did the pre-reduction of it with THELI, until I get a mosaic of the two FORS2 CCDs ... not the official way I suppose, but there was so many errors or things that didn't happen when I was trying to use it, that getting this mosaic was one of the bypasses I've used. Gotta write Mischa Schirmer about it. I'll compile all the problems and send him.
Anyway, in the train back home, I combined the few frames we have, trying to minimize the effect of the gap between the CCDs ... then recovered the WCS information, since the header was missing in this bypassed mosaic, adjusted it and decided to calibrate using my ACS photometry ... what a surprise ... the gap was not correctly filled, so that when the WCS is write in the upper CCD, it's wrong in the lower.
I'll try to fix easily and quickly this weekend, or monday, since I'm the "parent in charge" for the whole weekend! :-)))
Besides that, things will have to run pretty quickly since there's an important deadline related to this project approaching.
posted by Cris Da Rocha @ 10:51 PM
2 Comments:
I don't like IDL, you know. For political reasons.
IDL is a very nice piece of software. It is used because.
1) Very good image management and displaying.
2) Very good array management.
3) Lots useful functions embedded
Now, there're lots of astronomical software that run only under IDL. I see danger on it. The astronomical comunnity is getting overdependent of a plataform, that at the end, it does not control. What would happen when the IDL developers decide to not support certain features/versions? Rewrite everything? Just see what happened with companies when they created lots of critical software to run only under Windows. Now, they cannot get rid of it, despite how good or bad are the new Window versions.
Free software is the best way to prevent it for happening.
Cannot agree more with you!!
The problem is: We always created (and therefore controlled) our own software!
If we're gonna be dependent on a non-free platform, like IDL and gonna program and base all our scientific software on it, astronomical institutions and their "hosts" (faculties, universities, societies, ...) will have to admit and FUND this need.
There's no point on depending on a software platform, like IDL, and not having money to buy enough licenses, updates and maintenance. Like it happened to me some months ago, that when I needed support from ITTVS (the new owner of IDL, formerly RSINC) and they replied "your institute's maintenance contract expired, renew it to have support ...".
That's what will (actually already is) happen to 90% of the astronomical institutions, old and unsupported versions of IDL running and researchers struggling to be able to use the few licenses available ...
More and more inclined to learn PYTHON!
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